JON ZAL

Your front-row seat to my nervous breakdown

A new beginning

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Obama shirt
Old enough to remember when selfies weren’t a thing yet.

I bought this shirt about a year ago, not long after President Obama (President Obama! Sweet Jumping Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, I love saying that!) won the Iowa Caucus. At the time, I still thought he was a bit of a long shot, but, after having started off the campaign season convinced that Hillary was my candidate, I suddenly found myself swept up in the excitement of Barack Obama’s candidacy. The man moved me — and still does. And, thankfully, he also moved a majority of the voting public last November.

I vividly remember, with crystal clarity, sitting on the couch with my wife in our old apartment exactly eight years ago today, and being in a state of complete disbelief that the man taking the oath of office was actually going to be our president for at least four years. I just could not wrap my head around it.

When that same man was re-elected in 2004, I was done holding out any hope for presidential politics, and as the past eight years ticked by, I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the relatively youthful experiment that is America was headed toward a complete collapse, perhaps within my lifetime.

Today, I feel like I have been awakened from an eight-year-long, dark, dreary and depressing stupor to find that our nation is still capable of doing great things—and that our nation itself is still great.

I am elated and proud to have Barack Obama as my president. What an incredible day.

Proud American

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American Flag

In the days immediately following 9/11, there was a feeling, and a display, of patriotism in this country the likes of which I had never experienced. When I would go out for a run during those first weeks, I would keep my mind occupied by counting all of the American flags I saw along my route.

The past 24 hours mark the first time since that post-9/11 period that I have been overwhelmed by a feeling of true pride in being an American. I had feared desperately that the political and ideological rifts that exist in this country, along with outright racism and fear of the unknown, would combine to prevent Barack Obama from becoming the 44th president.

I remember watching that asteroid movie back in the ’90s—not the Bruce Willis one; the other one—in which Morgan Freeman was cast as the president. I remember thinking how wonderful a concept that was, and how entirely unlikely it was that I would ever see such a thing happen.

I recall watching “The West Wing” during its final season and seeing Jimmy Smits portray a Latino presidential candidate—an exceptionally bright, composed, dignified man who took the high road throughout his campaign, and whose words, actions, integrity and gravitas truly inspired people, to the point that he did, in fact, become the president. I remember the sense of disappointment I would feel when an episode would end and reality would come back into focus—a reality that had left me feeling certain that seeing such a man, and a minority member at that, become our president was a fantasy that could only take place in a fictional world.

I can’t even tell you how unbelievably fortunate I feel to be alive at this time, and to see happen that which I thought was completely improbable, if not impossible.

And whereas my previous flood of patriotic feelings were brought on by an unimaginable tragedy, the catalyst this time is an unimaginable victory. It is, quite literally, a completely alien and unique sensation, and one that I am savoring as much as is humanly possible.

Patriotic duty

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Veterans for Obama

This morning, I taped my “Veterans for Obama” sign to my front-door window. I did so to compensate for the fact that some asshole walked all the way up to the front of my house in broad daylight yesterday and stole my Obama yard sign. Fortunately, I’m pretty sure that the lack of signage in my front yard won’t have a substantial impact on Obama’s final vote tally tomorrow.

Though I served in the U.S. Army from 1988 to 1992, it took me a while to actually internalize that I am a “veteran.” Part of my inability to identify with that label on any meaningful level was the fact that I did not serve in a combat zone. I was active duty during the first Gulf War, and I am classified as a “Gulf War vet,” but my K-9 partner and I were patrolling a base in the Mojave Desert and doing narcotics searches in New York City, not ducking rounds in the Kuwaiti desert and wondering if we’d make it home.

My father served on a naval destroyer in the South Pacific during Vietnam. Both of my grandfathers served in World War II, one of them a Marine who experienced heavy combat on Iwo Jima and Saipan. They are the types of men I picture when I think of the word “veteran.”

That said, I have come to embrace my veteran status over the past eight years, largely because of my outrage over the fact that thousands of service members have been getting maimed and slaughtered as the result of a war I strongly opposed from Day One.

Many people who never served like to claim that “opposing the war” is synonymous with “not supporting our troops.” As a former soldier, I can assure you that this line of thinking is complete and utter bullshit.

Supporting our troops means not putting them in harm’s way unless all other options have been exhausted, and getting them out of harm’s way if a group of draft-dodging, chicken-hawk politicians with poor judgement and questionable motives uses them like disposable pawns in a preemptive, mismanaged war that never should have been waged.

I’m looking forward to voting today.

Funniest Washington Post article ever

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Big ups to Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank for his piece today titled “In the House, Suddenly Righteous Republicans.” A six-paragraph excerpt follows. Hang in there; there’s a payoff:

Thirty-one-year-old Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is not a large man, standing perhaps 5 feet 3 inches tall in thick soles. But he packed a whole lot of chutzpah when he walked into the House TV gallery yesterday to demand that the new Democratic majority give the new Republican minority all the rights that Republicans had denied Democrats for years.

“The bill we offer today, the minority bill of rights, is crafted based on the exact text that then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi submitted in 2004 to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert,” declared McHenry, with 10 Republican colleagues arrayed around him. “We’re submitting this minority bill of rights, which will ensure that all sides are protected, that fairness and openness is in fact granted by the new majority.”

Omitted from McHenry’s plea for fairness was the fact that the GOP had ignored Pelosi’s 2004 request — while routinely engaging in the procedural maneuvers that her plan would have corrected. Was the gentleman from North Carolina asking Democrats to do as he says, not as he did?

“Look, I’m a junior member,” young McHenry protested. “I’m not beholden to what former congresses did.”

Anne Kornblut of the New York Times asked McHenry if his complaint might come across as whining.

“I’m not whining,” he whined.

After you finish laughing, you can read the rest here.

A little post-election reflection

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SCENE: Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006, lunchtime, kitchen table.

“Daddy, why were you dancing and clapping?”

“Well, remember yesterday when you, me and Mommy went to vote?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the people who we voted for, and the people who we were hoping other people would vote for, got the most votes.”

“… [blink] … ”

“Because the good guys won and the bad guys lost, pal.”

“All right! High-five, Daddy!”

Destination: Hell. Mode of travel: Handbasket.

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It is election day. The future of our country hangs in the balance. The outcome will determine which party holds sway in Congress … and, therefore, the direction the nation will take during the next few years.

I subscribe to CNN.com’s email alerts, which they send out when an important news story breaks. They are surprisingly restrained in their use of these alerts; many days often pass without a single one arriving in my inbox. In fact, they have so far dispatched only one such alert on this momentous day. It reads as follows:

Britney Spears files for divorce from her husband Kevin Federline, citing irreconcilable differences.

Consider this Exhibit A in a presentation I’m working on titled “Why We’re All Completely Fucked.”

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